Angular-momentum transfer and alignment in deep-inelastic reactions for nearly symmetric heavy-ion systems

The magnitude and alignment of the spin transferred to the fragments in the deep-inelastic reactions of 8.5 MeV/nucleon ¹⁶⁵Ho on ¹⁷⁶Yb, ¹⁴⁸Sm, and ^natAg were investigated using continuum γ-ray multiplicity and anisotropy techniques. The detection system consisted of a highly redundant arrangement of particle and γ-ray detectors and a γ-ray multiplicity filter. By using suitable reduced quantities, we show that for the most negative Q-values the multiplicity data are consistent with rigid-rotation of the intermediate dinuclear complex. The anisotropy data are compared to an equilibrium statistical model calculation. The sensitivity of the calculation to different assumptions concerning the composition of the γ-ray spectra is investigated. The magnitude and alignment of the spin imparted to the individual fragments as a function of Q-value are extracted for the three reactions.